Shipping: US shipping is free for all reward levels, but we'd ask you to add $10 for shipping to Canada or $20 to all other countries (see also note on the $179 level). For the reward levels that include multiple shipments ($89, $99, $109. $129), we would prefer to ship everything together. For all international shipments, the consignee is responsible for all local duties and taxes.

Risk-Free Guarantee

If the campaign is successful and you get a copy of the game, but you really don’t like it, you can return your game within a month for your money back. We want you to take a chance on us, so we’ll mitigate that risk via this money-back guarantee.

Stretch Goals

About the Game

Viticulture: The Strategic Game of Winemaking is a 2-6 player game that takes 45-90 minutes to play. In the
game, you find yourself in rustic, pre-modern Tuscany, where you’ve inherited a
meager vineyard. You’ll have a few plots of land, an old crushpad, a tiny
cellar, 3 workers…and the dream of owning the best winery in Italy.

Your job is
to allocate your workers and helpful visitors to complete various tasks throughout the year. Each
season is different on a vineyard, so the workers have different tasks they can
take care of in the summer and winter. There’s competition over those tasks,
and often the first worker to arrive at each one has an advantage over the
rest.

Using those
workers and visitors, you can expand your vineyard by building structures,
planting vines, and filling wine orders as you work towards the goal of owning
the most successful winery in Tuscany.

If you or someone you know is an avid wine drinker or loves board games such as Settlers of Catan, Agricola, Stone Age, or Fresco, Viticulture is the perfect fit.

How to Play Viticulture

A quick overview of the game can be found in the video above, and a 2-player turn-by-turn gameplay video is here. You can also read the fully formatted rules here or visit the Board Game Geek page here.

Why You'll Love Viticulture

1. The romanticism of wine. There's something universally romantic about the idea of running a vineyard. It's appealing that you can choose exactly which strains of vines you get to plant in the ground and what you do with the grapes when those vines bear fruit. Every bottle is the product of your creativity. We've captured the essence of that creativity in each box of Viticulture.

2. Competition without cut-throatedness. In many board games--especially Euro-style games, the category Viticulture falls into--your opponents can ruin your strategy or even your day. We want people to walk away from Viticulture feeling great, so we made sure that there is healthy competition and conflict in the game without any of the cut-throatedness that can ruin someone's gaming experience. Much of that competition happens on the common board, while each player has complete control over the strategy they implement on his/her vineyard mat.

3. Choices, not luck. With all due respect to Monopoly, we believe that making choices are a lot more fun and interesting than relying almost purely on luck. There are no dice in Viticulture. There is a small amount of luck when you draw cards, but you can control that luck by drawing more cards. The vast majority of the game is about choice--when and where you choose to use your workers.

4. Scaleability and replayability. It's really important to us that Viticulture is just as enjoyable--and the same game--whether you're playing one on one at lunch or with your spouse and two other couples over a few bottles of wine. So we created a new scaling mechanic to handle various numbers of people (2-6). Also, we wanted to make sure that the game is different every time you play--in fact, not only is every game different, but every year within the game is different due to the turn-order mechanic we employed.

Expansion

The Arboriculture expansion essentially doubles the complexity of the game and adds about 15 minutes to the overall playing time. It involves the addition of olive oil, apples, and tomatoes, all of which you harvest on your fields just like the grapes, but you process them on an extension to your vineyard mat (unlike the game board, you can choose your worker actions unencumbered by other players on your vineyard mat extension). 18 new "arbor" cards are also added to the game in their own deck that you can draw from by taking the "draw a vine card" action, as well as "super worker" tokens and worker-morale tokens.

For more information about the expansion and other questions, please see the FAQ at the bottom of the page.

Who We Are

We're Jamey Stegmaier and Alan Stone, the founders of Stonemaier Games and the creators of Viticulture. We LOVE board games. We love the way they bring people together in the spirit of fun and competition. We love that board games are tangible--you really feel like you're building something new and creative when you play a board game. And we love that board games provide small victories that are immensely gratifying.

Jamey has been designing board games his entire life with the hope of someday publishing one. Alan is an avid board game player and has started designing games in recent years--he has introduced Jamey to a number of great board games.

Years of developing games have culminated in the design for Viticulture, and we think that we've created a game that is incredibly fun for gamers, non-gamers, wine lovers, and people who don't care about wine. But we need your help for this game to exist.

Why We Need You

This is a true Kickstarter campaign in that if we hadn't reached our funding goal, Viticulture simply would not exist at all. The primary reason is that the minimum order we can place with the manufacturer is 1500 copies of the game. That plus freight shipping and the art, design, individual shipping, and Kickstarter processing fees amount to about $25,000. We truly believe in this game and have invested heavily in it, but we needed your help to place the first order.

As we continue to exceed our goal, you are enabling us to increase the first print run of the game so we can get more copies of Viticulture out in the world. In fact, if we get enough support, we want to go above and beyond to reward YOU through our stretch goals.

Add-Ons

Reward Levels

A Kickstarter project wouldn't be complete without a variety of rewards. Remember, if the project isn't fully funded during our Kickstarter campaign, you won't be charged a dime (and, unfortunately, the game won't be published). You can always go back and change or cancel your reward level before the campaign ends.Here's more info about how that works if you're not familiar with Kickstarter.

As noted in the graphic below, US shipping is free for all reward levels, but we'd ask you to add $10 for shipping to Canada or $20 to all other countries.

Special Thanks

Huge thanks to David Montgomery
(board and vineyard mat artist), Maria Burke and Christine Bielke (graphic designers), Beth Sobel (box and card artist), Trevor MacDougall (wine connoisseur),
Erin Maloney and Erin Hawkins for their help with the video, Aaron Watson of
Fallen Flag for their song "Call It a Crime" and Jarrod Clark of Here Lies Yonder for
their song “Dark Days,” Chris Matthews of Panda Games, both Fresco (TM) and Stone Age (TM) for helping to inspire Viticulture, and everyone who
playtested the game with us.

Risks and challenges

Kickstarter just added this new section, so I should probably write something here. I think the main challenge that lies ahead is that I have a lot to learn about inventory management, order fulfillment, and distribution. It's one thing to ship something to 20 people or even 100, but 600? That's a big challenge. I'm trying to find the most time- and cost-efficient way to get the games to people on schedule. This is a learning process for me, so if you have any recommendations, please message me.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $99 or more
About $99

Your name will be immortalized on 6 coins in every copy of the game. Also includes 4 stemless wine glasses embossed with the Viticulture logo delivered by December 1, 2012, 1 copy of Viticulture and 1 copy of the expansion sent in May.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $119 or more
About $119

1 copy of Viticulture, 1 copy of the Kickstarter-exclusive expansion, your name and a friend's name will be immortalized on 1 of every promo card, and the artist will use your face and a friend's face to create the likeness of the characters on the promo cards.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $129 or more
About $129

Your name will be immortalized on 1 card in every copy of the expansion ever printed. Also includes 2 copies of the game, 2 copies of the expansion, 4 stemless wine glasses embossed with the Viticulture logo, and 2 stainless steel Viticulture corkscrews.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $139 or more
About $139

Get the game 3 months before anyone else in the world! 1 autographed advance copy of the game and expansion--this is one of the first five copies of the game, airlifted across the Pacific with the company's review copy, then shipped to you in February 2013. (Add $10 for Canada and $20 for international, just like the other reward levels.)

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $149 or more
About $149

2 copies of Viticulture, 2 copies of the expansion, 4 Viticulture wine glasses, and your choice of Alan or Jamey will attend a game night with you and your friends to teach you how to play. Mutually agreeable date in St. Louis, Richmond, or Kansas City.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $179 or more
About $179

Hidden Level #3: Unlocked! 6 copies of Viticulture and 6 copies of the expansion (ideal for wineries, game stores, and gaming groups--this is 50% of the expected retail price of the $60 game/expansion combo, which is only available through Kickstarter)

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $499 or more
About $499

1 copy of Viticulture, 1 copy of the expansion, and the original artwork for either the game board, the player mat, or the box. 10% of the proceeds from this level will go to David Montgomery, the artist.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $999 or more
About $999

1 copy of Viticulture, 1 copy of the expansion, and your choice of Alan or Jamey will travel anywhere in the continental US to deliver the game in person on a mutually agreeable date. Your pledge covers our travel/expenses.